The MLC Welcomes Simply Royalties and Verifi Media as New Data Quality Initiative (DQI) Partners | Mechanical Licensing Collective

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) announced that Simply Royalties and Verifi Media have joined its Data Quality Initiative (DQI) Partner Program, partnerships that will make it easier for each company’s customers to participate in the DQI and check the accuracy of their musical works data with that listed in The MLC’s database. With the new additions, The MLC now has seven music data companies onboarded as official DQI partners. 

The MLC continues to emphasize the importance of data accuracy with its Members now that the organization is distributing digital audio mechanical royalties on a monthly basis, and the DQI is a highly effective and user-friendly resource that helps rightsholders make sure they have registered the most accurate, complete and updated musical works data with The MLC.   

The DQI provides a streamlined way for music publishers, administrators and collective management organizations (CMOs), as well as self-administered songwriters, lyricists and composers, to directly compare their own musical works data with The MLC’s to ensure consistency between both sets of data. DQI users receive reports highlighting the discrepancies between the data they submit for comparison and The MLC’s data. Using these reports, participants can easily identify those discrepancies and then the necessary steps to resolve the issues. 

More than 500 companies and individuals have reached out to The MLC to participate in the DQI since it was launched in the summer of 2020, and The MLC has performed comparisons covering more than 21 million musical works through the DQI to-date. 

"I am thrilled to welcome Simply Royalties and Verifi Media as Data Quality Initiative partners,” said Dae Bogan, The MLC’s Head of Third-Party Partnerships. “Their addition exemplifies The MLC’s commitment to diversity as a guiding principle, as each company operates a different business model offering rightsholders options for choosing a partner to facilitate their participation in the DQI regardless of catalog size or budget, and we look forward to working with them both.”

"Our team at Verifi is thrilled to partner with The MLC on this initiative, which aligns closely with our mission to enable cleaner and more consistent rights data,” noted Christian Babikian of Verifi Media. “We applaud The MLC for providing songwriters, publishers and administrators the opportunity to ensure their data is at the highest standard."

“Working with The MLC has been a great experience and being a DQI partner allows me to offer my clients a valuable resource that helps them easily compare their musical works data with that of The MLC,” added Mark Alspaugh owner of Simply Royalties. 

The MLC’s DQI partners take different approaches to helping their clients and customers participate 
in the DQI. While some integrate new functionality into the existing data-related products, services and software platforms they offer, others work with their clients directly to help them prepare and submit their comparison files to The MLC and review the results.  

Companies interested in partnering with The MLC can get started here. More information on the Data Quality Initiative can be found here.